Only Love

12

Prettyface nudged Shannon and whined deep in his throat. The movement and the sound reminded her that she was standing in front of her cabin with tears cold on her face. Taking a deep breath, she concentrated on the long list of things that must be done if she was to get through the summer, much less the coming winter.

Crying definitely wasn’t on the list.

She put one hand under Prettyface’s big jaws and rubbed his head with her other hand. His shrewd wolf’s eyes glazed with pleasure. She smiled slightly, smoothed thick fur back into place, and put her cheek against his broad head.

«I’ll be all right, Prettyface,» she said. She straightened and released him. «Go rustle up your dinner while I unpack Crowbait and Razorback and picket them in the meadow.»

Prettyface stood, head cocked, watching Shannon.

«Go on, boy. I know you’re hungry. The pickings were pretty slim for you up in Grizzly Meadow. Go.»

Waving her arm in the direction of the meadow and forest beyond the cabin, Shannon repeated her soft command.

After a moment Prettyface turned and trotted off to the edge of the meadow. He put his nose to the ground and began quartering the area for scent of game.

Shannon turned to Crowbait and Razorback. She unsaddled the mule, switched bridle for halter, and turned to the packhorse. As she worked over the neat diamond hitches securing the supplies, she felt tears crowding her eyes again. It had been Whip’s hands that had tied the knots, Whip’s hands that had loaded the pack saddle, Whip’s hands that had smoothed the blanket pad in place and adjusted the halter.

«Don’t think about it,» Shannon whispered. «There’s too much to be done. Crying over a stubborn yondering man won’t butter any biscuits.»

Shannon tried not to, but her hands still lingered over the pack saddle and supplies, touching everything that Whip had touched, until finally everything was put away in its place. Numbly she led the animals into the meadow to picket them so that they could graze their fill of the sweet grasses.

Just as Shannon was driving in the second picket pin, she heard Prettyface break into savage barking. Her heart hesitated, then beat frantically.

Prettyface made that sound only when strangers came too close.

Motionless, cursing herself for being so addled by Whip’s leaving that she had forgotten to carry the shotgun, Shannon scanned the meadow’s edge for any sign of men.

Abruptly two long-legged mules appeared at the edge of the concealing forest and came swiftly toward Shannon. She leaped to her feet and spun toward the cabin, only to find two more Culpeppers between her and the shotgun she had stupidly left behind.

Shannon didn’t waste any breath calling for help. There was no one around but Prettyface, and he had already warned her. She whirled away from the two-pronged attack and raced for the forest, praying that she had enough speed to make the cover of the trees ahead of the racing mules.

Before Shannon was halfway to the forest, the beating of hooves sounded louder and louder in her ears. Even as she strained to run faster, she knew she was losing the race. She simply wasn’t quick enough to reach the trees before the Culpeppers caught her.

A long, wiry arm reached out and grabbed Shannon just beneath the rib cage. Darcy wasn’t strong enough to lift his struggling prize into the saddle, but he hung on no matter how hard she clawed and bit and screamed.

«Clim was right,» Darcy crowed, slowing his mule. «She’s plumb full of piss and vinegar!»

Beau grunted. It had been the extent of his conversation ever since he had learned just how fast and accurate a bullwhip could be.

«Hold still, darlin’,» Darcy said. «I’m just as ready for it as you are, but Beau gets firsts, him bein’ the oldest and all. I get thirds, so save your fightin’ till — eeeiow!»

The words ended in a cry of shock and fear as Prettyface came up on Darcy’s blind side and leaped straight for his throat.

Darcy dropped Shannon in order to protect himself. An instant later, one hundred and forty pounds of enraged dog slammed into Darcy’s shoulder. The force of the attack knocked him right out of the saddle.

Prettyface followed Darcy down, snarling and snapping the whole way.

Shannon landed on hands and knees on the other side of the mule from the fight. No sooner did she hit the ground than she was on her feet and running again. As she ran, she yelled at Prettyface to break off the attack and flee, for she knew the Culpeppers would have no mercy in them for the loyal hound.

Just as Shannon reached the forest, she glanced back. There was a snarling, swearing tangle of flesh and fur on the ground. Beau was still in the saddle. His six-gun was drawn. The barrel tracked the fight, waiting for an opening.

Inevitably, it would come.

Tears streaming down her face, her breath tearing at her lungs, Shannon raced into the forest, taking the chance Prettyface had given her to escape. And as she ran, she prayed that she could circle back up the mountainside, sneak into the cabin through the cave and grab the shotgun before it was too late to help Prettyface.

Shannon was only partway up the mountainside behind the cabin when Beau’s six-gun opened fire.

WHIP reined Sugarfoot to an abrupt halt at the edge of one of the trail’s many crossings of Avalanche Creek. The horse chewed unhappily at the bit, but was otherwise quiet.

Listening intently, motionless but for his eyes, Whip probed the shadows and forest in all directions. He neither saw nor heard anything to explain his deep unease.

«You’re imagining things,» he muttered.

Yet still he heard Shannon’s voice calling his name with every shift of the wind, every stirring of the forest, every swirl of water over rocks.

Whip, I really didn’t mean to ask for your love.

His big hands clenched into fists.

«Damn you, Shannon. You’re tying me in knots.»

I love you, yondering man.

Whip closed his eyes. His fingers were so tightly clenched that the reins cut even through his riding gloves.

«I don’t want your love,» he said through his teeth. «I don’t want to feel beholden. I can’t stay in just one place, honey girl.»

Suddenly Sugarfoot’s ears pricked and his elegant gray head whipped around to watch the trail behind him.

His rider heard the sounds, too.

Back toward Shannon’s cabin, someone had opened fire with a six-gun. Shannon didn’t own a weapon like that.

But the Culpeppers did.

Whip spun Sugarfoot around and spurred him. As the horse leaped forward, Whip checked that his repeating rifle was safe in its scabbard. There were times when a bullwhip just wouldn’t get the job done. Whip was certain this was one of those times.

Bending low over his mount’s neck, Whip urged the horse to a reckless pace. Rocks and trees raced by, but it seemed to him that he was nailed to the ground, moving at a snail’s space, slow as dawn on the longest night of winter.

He would have sold his soul to be able to reach Shannon before the Culpeppers hurt her.

Sugarfoot pounded back up the Avalanche Creek path, taking the fork in the trail at a dead run, leaping rocks and rotting logs without a break in stride. When the forest thickened again, Sugarfoot slowed just enough to be able to avoid or jump over the natural obstacles that were strewn across the trail. Small runoff channels and big boulders, freshly fallen trees and trees that had long ago fallen, all of them flashed beneath the hooves of the hardrunning horse.

Whip rode Sugarfoot like a big cat, never coming loose no matter which way the horse jumped, always ready with a steady pressure on the reins to help Sugarfoot gather himself after a difficult jump.

As Sugarfoot hurtled yet another log, more shots came from up ahead. The sounds were much closer now. There was no doubt that it was a six-gun. Several six-guns, in fact.

No rifle answered.

No shotgun boomed.

«Run, you big gray bastard,» Whip said through his teeth. «Run!»

Spurs reinforced Whip’s command. Sugarfoot flattened out and gave everything he had. Nose stretched into the wind, tail streaming behind, the horse tore through the forest at a flatly dangerous speed. One misstep, one mistake, and both man and horse would go down in a tangle of broken limbs.

Whip knew it but didn’t care. In his mind was the memory of how the Culpeppers had watched Shannon with eyes that were even more lewd than their words.

And now she was at their mercy.

The trees ahead thinned, telling Whip that the meadow was immediately ahead. As much as he wanted to gallop right up to the cabin, he knew it would be stupid. He wouldn’t be much good to Shannon if he got cut down in a Culpepper crossfire.

And he had no doubt it was the Culpeppers who were after Shannon.

Whip pulled hard on the reins. Sugarfoot sat on his hocks and slid to a stop in a turmoil of dirt and forest debris. The meadow was only thirty feet ahead. Rifle in hand, bullwhip over his shoulder, Whip kicked his feet free of the stirrups and jumped off. He landed on his feet, running hard.

Before he reached the edge of the trees, a rope shot out of the shadows and tangled around his feet. He rolled as he fell, yanking free of the rope and regaining his balance with a feline twist of his body.

But it was already too late.

When Whip stood, he was looking right up the barrel of Floyd Culpepper’s six-gun. Whip could tell the man was Floyd because he was holding his gun in his left hand. His right wrist was wrapped tightly in rags that might have been clean once, but no longer were.

Pale blue eyes watched Whip with an expression somewhere between malice and glee.

«Lookee here, Clim. Darcy was right about this ol’ boy hotfooting it back here if n he heard shots.»

Clim turned aside and spat a brown stream of tobacco juice.

«And here you thought Darcy was just trying to cut me out of my rightful turn in that little widow’s saddle,» Clim added.

Rage and something more gripped Whip, a feeling as though his guts had been cut out and were falling away, leaving him cold all the way to his soul.

«Whoever touches Shannon is a dead man walking,» Whip said.

Floyd’s smile revealed sharp, uneven teeth.

«Right fine sentiments,» Floyd said mockingly, «but you ain’t in no position to be making no brags. Drop that long gun, boy. And that bullwhip, too.»

Whip obeyed, but his gray eyes never stopped measuring the distances between himself and Floyd’s drawn gun and Clim’s holstered weapon.

«You see a knife, Clim?»

«Nah. ‘Sides, no thick-chested West Virginia boy can hold a candle to me in a knife fight.»

«Walk,» Floyd said to Whip, gesturing with his bandaged wrist toward the meadow. «You try to get away and I’ll kill you quick as a rabbit.»

Whip didn’t doubt it.

«Give the signal,» Floyd said to Clim.

Clim whistled shrilly, three short blasts of sound followed by silence.

After a few moments, a whistle answered.

«Move it, boy,» Floyd said to Whip. «They’re waiting for us, and Beau ain’t a waiting kind of man.»

When Whip moved forward it was with a peculiar, gliding grace. His weight was always poised on the balls of his feet, ready to jump or lash out in any direction at the first sign of carelessness from his captors. He held his hands oddly, just away from his sides, his fingers slightly curved as though in relaxation.

«Told ya,» Floyd said to Clim after a few steps.

«Told me what?»

«This here ol’ boy ain’t much account without his bullwhip and rifle. He’s as heedful as a welltrained hound.»

Clim grunted. «Damn big hound. Even bigger than the one Beau shot. We’d of had that gal if’n that cur hadn’t jumped Darcy when he grabbed her.»

Hope stabbed through Whip. It sounded like Shannon might have gotten away.

«Don’t git yer water hot,» Floyd said to Clim. «Beau ain’t much on talkin’ lately, but he can still track slick as sin. He’ll get the widow ‘fore she gets too far. Hell, ain’t no place for her to go to anyways.»

Clim eyed the big man walking in front of him. Despite Whip’s surrender, the coiled ease of his stride made Clim nervous.

«Why don’t you just shoot him and get done with it?» Clim asked.

«Beau,» Floyd said succinctly. «He’s got a bone to pick with this ol’ boy. You want to be the one to tell Beau he can’t have no fun ‘cause you done gone and killed him?»

Whatever Clim said was too guttural to understand.

Whip walked from the shadows of the trees into the full sunlight of the meadow.

To the girl hiding and catching her breath after a reckless scramble down through Silent John’s bolthole to the cave and from there into the cabin, Whip’s appearance was dream and nightmare combined.

It can’t be Whip! He rode away.

Seeing Whip captive to the Culpeppers wrenched Shannon’s mind away from her fear for Prettyface, forcing her to concentrate on saving herself, for only then could she save Whip.

Still unable to believe that Whip had come back, Shannon leaned forward and peered through the ill-fitting shutters again.

There was no mistake. Sunlight flashed on hair as pale as corn silk. Sunlight outlined clean, powerful limbs and wide shoulders. And sunlight showed that Whip’s hands were empty of weapons.

Nor did the bullwhip lie in quiet coils on his shoulder.

Shannon bit her lip against a hunger to cry out to Whip, to tell him that he wasn’t alone, that she would help him. But crying out would be as foolish as walking barefoot through a campfire.

Quickly Shannon turned away from the shutters, went to the front door, and lifted the shotgun down from its pegs. As she reached to open the door, she heard a voice call from just beyond her cabin.

«Told ya you’d get him!»

«Yah. Easy as shootin’ a hen on a nest,» called someone from the meadow.

Heart beating wildly, Shannon shifted the shotgun and lowered the heavy bar into place across the door. She tiptoed back to the shutter and peered out again.

Whip was walking across the meadow toward the cabin. Behind him rode two men on mules. Another man stood ten feet from the cabin door, watching the three men approach. The ripped state of the nearest man’s clothes — and the bloody marks on his face and arms — told Shannon that this was the Culpepper who had grabbed her, only to go down beneath Prettyface’s attack.

Shannon’s hands tightened on the shotgun as she thought of her loyal dog. Then she forced herself to think of here and now, and the danger to Whip and herself.

There was no time to claw her way back out the bolthole and down the mountainside to surprise the Culpeppers. Whatever she did would have to be done from here.

And soon.

I could open the cabin door, aim at the man closest to me, and let fly with both barrels of buckshot.

Frowning, Shannon thought about it. She would certainly take one man out of the fight that way, but it would leave Whip still captive to the other Culpeppers, who would likely shoot him out of hand before she could reload her own shotgun.

Then there was the fourth Culpepper to worry about. He had to be around somewhere. Probably he was still in the forest trying to figure out which way she had gone. If he heard shots, he would come on the run.

Maybe I only need one barrel on the closest Culpepper. Then I could fire the second barrel at the other two.

After a moment Shannon decided that was her best bet. She would wait until the other two Culpeppers were within range, and then she would tell them to let Whip go. If it came to shooting, surely Whip would have enough sense to drop to the ground. Knowing his quickness and size, he probably would take a Culpepper down with him.

White-knuckled, Shannon stood by the shutters and watched her front yard with the intensity of a cat at a mouse hole, counting each step Whip and his captors took toward the cabin. If she were really lucky, Whip would manage to separate himself from the group somehow. That way she wouldn’t have to worry about wounding him when the buckshot spread out in its characteristic deadly pattern after it left the barrel.

Slowly, carefully, moving by fractions of inches, Shannon opened the shutters enough to rest the shotgun on the windowsill. She cocked the hammer on one barrel, settled her finger lightly around one of the two triggers, and waited, watching the man who held a gun on Whip.

«Any sign of the gal?» dim asked, dismounting.

Darcy shook his head. «She took off into the forest.»

Beneath Whip’s predatory readiness, relief spread through him, warming the soul-deep cold that had begun when he thought of Shannon’s fate at the hands of the Culpeppers.

«But we’ll get her, just like we got her damned hound,» Darcy added. «Beau’s tracking her now.»

«Looks more like Prettyface got you,» Whip said. «Chewed you up and spit you right out. No hound likes the taste of skunk.»

Darcy shifted his cud of tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other and measured Whip for a grave.

«It was the last thing that damned hound did,» Floyd said. «Beau shot him.»

«I should have killed Beau back at Holler Creek,» Whip said. «Live and learn. Or in your case, boys, live and die ignorant.»

Darcy spat a stream of tobacco juice onto Whip’s boots.

Whip just looked at him and wondered what kind of insults it would take to distract Floyd long enough for Whip to grab his six-gun. Then Whip would feed the gun to Darcy. Sideways.

«What do we do now?» Floyd asked.

«Wait for Beau.»

«I need whiskey. Goddam wrist is paining me something fierce,» Floyd muttered, eyeing his right arm in disgust. «Every time my mule takes a step it feels like somebody’s a-hammerin’ on my arm.»

Whip smiled. «It doesn’t look too good, Floyd. All those red streaks. And the smell. Lord above. I’m surprised you can stand it.»

Darcy and Floyd ignored Whip.

«You’ll have to wait,» Darcy said to Floyd. «Beau’s got the tanglefoot with him.»

Behind Whip, Floyd’s mule shifted and stamped its right foreleg, dislodging a deerfly.

«Goddam,» Floyd groaned. «Hurts.»

«Then get down and quit your bellyaching,» Darcy said. «I’m still bleeding from that damned hound and you don’t hear me whining, do ya?»

A saddle creaked as Floyd prepared to dismount.

Adrenaline went through Whip. It was the moment he had been waiting for. From the corner of his eye he could see Floyd’s shadow sliding along the ground as he moved.

He was still holding the six-gun in his left hand, keeping the barrel trained on Whip. Floyd’s natural grip was right-handed. As he dismounted the barrel of the six-gun wavered from its target. It was just for an instant, but an instant was all that Whip had been waiting for.

In a blur of motion, Whip spun around and simultaneously kicked outward. His boot connected with Floyd’s injured wrist. Floyd made an odd sound and forgot all about the six-gun. Pain knocked him senseless.

Whip struck the gun from Floyd’s loose fingers and whirled around again. The side of Whip’s left hand connected with Darcy’s neck.

The sound of the impact was lost in Clim’s bellow of rage. He drew a long knife and lunged for Whip’s back.

But Whip was no longer there. He spun aside so suddenly that Clim went staggering past Whip, off-balance, knife slicing uselessly at air. A flashing movement of Whip’s hands added to Clim’s forward momentum.

Clim went head over heels and landed flat on his back. When he rolled to his feet and lunged again, Whip slipped the knife attack as he had before, grabbed Clim on the way by, and launched him headfirst into the side of the cabin. Clim hit with a force that shook the logs…and then he slid down onto the ground and lay very still.

Just as Whip bent over to check Clim, Shannon screamed from inside the cabin. Her high cry was cut off by the thunder of a shotgun blast.

The window was closer to Whip than the door. He kicked the partially open shutters aside as he vaulted over the windowsill, counting on surprise to help him against whatever he found inside.

Shannon spun toward him, her face pale and her hand frantically cocking the shotgun.

«Easy, honey girl. It’s just me.»

Shannon made a small sound and stood, swaying, her eyes huge in her bloodless face.

«I —» she said. Her voice broke. «A Culpepper — the cave — he —»

Whip saw the open cupboard door behind Shannon. A man’s boots stuck out into the room, toes up. There was blood on them.

Shannon started to turn back toward the cupboard. Before she could finish turning, Whip took the shotgun from her hands and stepped between her and the fallen man, blocking her view.

«You did what you had to,» Whip said gently. «I’ll take care of it now. You go outside and make sure that Floyd doesn’t get into mischief.»

«F-Floyd?»

«The one with the bandaged wrist.»

«What about the other t-two?»

«I don’t think they’ll be much trouble,» Whip said neutrally. He handed Shannon the shotgun again. «Go on, honey girl. I’ll be out real soon to collect their weapons.»

Whip unbarred the front door and watched closely as Shannon walked by him. Her eyes were too dark and her skin was much too pale, but her hands were steady on the shotgun. She kept walking until she was in a place where she could watch all three Culpeppers at once.

«You’ll do, Shannon Conner Smith,» Whip said beneath his breath. «You’ve got real sand.»

Whip turned and went to the cupboard. He lit the lantern and held it above Beau Culpepper. After a single look Whip blew the lantern out and went to Shannon.

«Is he dead?» she asked starkly.

«Yes.»

Shannon closed her eyes for an instant. A tremor ripped through her, but her grip on the shotgun didn’t loosen.

«He had a knife in one hand,» Whip said, «and a six-gun in the other. Don’t feel bad for him. He’s had it coming for a long, long time. It’s just too bad you had to be the one to deliver it.»

Shannon took a steadying breath. «Prettyface —»

She could say no more.

«I’ll look for him,» Whip said. «But first, I’d better see to these boys.»

To Whip’s surprise, Clim was still alive, but only barely. Darcy hadn’t been so lucky. Floyd was already coming back to his senses, moaning and complaining every breath of the way.

Talking softly, Whip went to one of the mules. The animal eyed him warily but made no attempt to flee; obviously the Culpeppers had trained their mounts not to be upset by a little gunfire and blood. With a few quick motions, Whip untied the blanket roll behind a saddle.

«I’ve never seen a man fight like you did,» Shannon said, watching Whip and remembering his flashing, always unexpected movements. «Did you learn that in West Virginia?»

«China.»

With one hand Whip removed Darcy’s weapons. With the other, he shook out a blanket and covered the dead man. Then Whip turned to the other Culpeppers.

«The Chinese have tricks that make what I did look like child’s play,» Whip added.

Shannon made a disbelieving sound.

«It’s true,» Whip said. «The man who taught me didn’t come up to my breastbone and weighed less than you. But he could lay me out like a fish for filleting in about five seconds flat. Damnedest wrestling tricks you ever saw.»

While Whip spoke, he stripped away guns and knives from the fallen men, retrieved his own bullwhip, and put it on his shoulder. Then he bound Clim’s wrists and knees together with rawhide thongs. He did the same for Floyd, ignoring the groans.

«Where did they jump you?» Whip asked Shannon as he stood up.

«Halfway between here and the big stump on the far side of the meadow.»

Whip went to Shannon, tilted her chin up with his hand, kissed her lips lightly, and released her.

«You keep an eye on things here,» he said. «I’ll bring Prettyface back to you.»

For a moment Shannon looked at Whip with haunted blue eyes. Then she nodded and turned back to watching Culpeppers.

Whip swung up onto a mule and headed out into the meadow. When he neared the place Shannon had described, he began quartering the tall grass and wildflowers. It didn’t take him long to find the big hound.

Cursing under his breath, Whip looked down at Prettyface. Bloody cloth was still gripped in his jaws. A shallow scarlet groove went across his skull, just above the glazed, half-open eyes. Another wound left a bright strip of blood across his brindle chest. A third bullet had clipped his haunch.

Blood welled slowly from the wounds.

Whip made a startled sound and dismounted in a single rushing movement. An instant later he was kneeling by Prettyface’s side. The hound’s flank rose and fell slightly, steadily, as much a proof of life as the fact that his wounds still bled.

«You’re a tough son, aren’t you?» Whip said in a low voice.

Gently, thoroughly, he went over the big brindle body. Prettyface flinched once and made a high sound.

«Easy there,» Whip said soothingly. «Looks like you got kicked pretty good, and you’re bleeding in three or four places, and knocked sillier than a squirrel from that crease on your skull, but you’re young and strong. You’ll live to play with your mistress in the flowers again.»

Before Prettyface could regain his senses completely. Whip eased the big hound into his arms, stood up, and grabbed the mule’s rein. The dog whined, but made no other protest as he was carreid across the meadow to the cabin with the mule Following along behind.

The first thing Whip saw as he approached the cabin was a big stranger standing off to one side of the yard, watching him with eyes the color of gunmetal.

Damnation, Whip thought grimly. I sure to God hope that man’s name isn’t Culpepper.

«Shannon?» Whip called.

«If you mean the girl with the shotgun, she’s inside the cabin, fixing to ventilate my spine if I do something foolish.»

Whip looked past the man to the window. Sure enough, the barrel of the shotgun was poked through the window, plainly tracking the stranger’s every breath.

Prudently, Whip stepped to the side.

The dark-haired stranger nodded slightly, understanding Whip’s move. If the shotgun went off, Whip wouldn’t be in the way of any stray buckshot.

«Take care of your hound,» the man said, looking at Prettyface with sympathy. «I’ll keep.»

Then the man’s eyes changed, becoming as hard as flint when he glanced at the three Culpeppers on the ground.

Whip knelt and lowered Prettyface gently to the grass. As whip stood again, the long lash dropped from his shoulder. The butt of the bullwhip came into his left hand as though summoned. Leather coils seethed and rippled restlessly at his feet.

«Come on out, Shannon,» Whip said clearly. «Prettyface is cut up some, but he’ll live.»

The shotgun barrel vanished from the window. The cabin door opened and banged shut as Shannon ran out, hope and fear clear in her face.

«Prettyface?» she asked huskily.

«Right behind me. Watch that shotgun, now.»

Shannon didn’t bother to answer Whip. She had already uncocked the shotgun and was kneeling by her dog, making soft, happy noises.

Whip never took his eyes off the tall, long-boned stranger whose riding cape, trousers, and boots had once been part of a Confederate uniform.

«You know these boys?» Whip asked.

«Culpeppers, from the look of their mules.»

«Friends of yours?»

«I’ve been hunting them ever since Appomattox. All eleven of them.»

«Any particular reason?» Whip asked mildly.

«They’re wanted, dead or alive, in Texas. During the War Between the States, they murdered three young Texas women and sold their children to the Comancheros. By the time the fathers came home from the war, found out what had happened, and went to rescue their children, it was too late. Every last child was dead.»

Whip didn’t ask any more questions. He didn’t need to. The man was obviously a former Confederate officer. Whip suspected that the man’s wife had been one of the three young women murdered by Culpeppers.

As for the rest, Whip had only to look at the man’s bleak eyes to know that his children had been among the missing.

«Hunting Culpeppers, huh?» Whip asked softly. «Well, this is your lucky day, my friend. Those three are Clim, Darcy, and Floyd.»

«Dead?»

«Darcy is. Clim and Floyd are alive for the time being. Wouldn’t bet a Confederate dollar on their chances, though. Clim’s back is broken and Floyd’s wrist smells like it’s gone bad.»

«Gangrene?»

Whip nodded.

«From the fight in Holler Creek?» the stranger asked.

«Wasn’t much of a fight. I took them by surprise and just kept at it until the job was done.»

If one corner of a mouth lifting slightly could be called a smile, the stranger smiled.

«Thought it might be you,» the man said, looking at the long, restless lash. «Whip, isn’t it?»

«That’s what they call me.»

«I’m called Hunter since the war.»

«Hunter,» Whip said neutrally, nodding.

«Heard Beau was with them,» Hunter said, gesturing to the Culpeppers.

«He was.»

«Then he got away again,» Hunter said savagely. «Damn his slippery hide! Excuse me, ma’am.»

«Don’t apologize,» Shannon said without looking up from Prettyface. «I’m no gentle Southern lady. I just killed a man.»

Hunter’s black eyebrows rose. «A Culpepper?»

Shannon nodded curtly.

«Well, ma’am, some folks would argue that a Culpepper doesn’t count as a man, ’ Hunter said.» «Especially the folks who buried what was left of those three young women.»

Hunter turned back to Whip.

«Which way did Beau go?» Hunter asked.

«Straight to hell, I imagine.»

«He’s dead?» Hunter asked, looking around again.

Whip nodded. «In the cabin.»

Hunter gestured with his head toward Shannon, asking a silent question.

Again, Whip nodded.

Some of the fierce tension left Hunter’s body. Not until he began to relax did Whip realize just how poised for battle Hunter had been.

«I owe you,» Hunter said simply. «There was five hundred dollars on Beau’s head, two hundred on Floyd and Darcy, and one hundred on Clim. I’ll see that you get it.»

«No,» Shannon said fiercely. «No blood money. We wouldn’t have killed them if we had a choice.»

Hunter looked at Whip. Again, the left corner of Hunter’s mouth turned up very slightly, not even Enough to disturb his black mustache.

Though he didn’t say a word, Whip knew that Hunter understood what Shannon hadn’t yet realized: once the Culpeppers had grabbed Shannon, they had signed their own death warrants as far as Whip was concerned.

«If you’ll help me load the Culpeppers on two mules,» Hunter said, «I’ll give them to the first bounty hunter I find.»

«You’re not taking them in yourself?»

«Abner, Horace, Gaylord, Erasmus, and Jeremiah are still alive. Erasmus and Jeremiah are rumored to be on their way to Virginia City. I’ll be looking for the other three now that these boys are taken care of.»

«What about the rest?»

«My brother Case is tracking Erasmus and Jeremiah. When the Culpeppers split up, we split up, Too. Case drew the short straw, so he only got to Chase two of the sons of bitches. He’ll make up for It, though. I expect he might beat me to Virginia City.»

«Eleven, you said,» Whip muttered. «Is that all of them?»

«All there is to speak of,» Hunter said dryly. «But Pappy Culpepper was a tireless old goat. I expect he left quite a few eggs in other nests before my daddy shot him.»

«Eleven. Damnation. What about the rest of the alphabet? Am I likely to meet them any time soon?»

«Not likely. They’re buried back Texas way.»

Whip didn’t have to ask who had done the burying. Hunter had a look about him that reminded Whip of Caleb Black; a good man, but hard as flint.

The kind who made a very bad enemy.

«Hope you get the last of them,» Whip said.

«We will. You can count on it.»

Whip smiled slightly, glad that his name wasn’t Culpepper.

«Get on one of those racing mules and fetch that shaman,» Whip said, turning to Shannon. «He can nurse Prettyface while we’re gone.»

Shannon’s head snapped up. «Where are you going?»

«We,» Whip corrected. «We’re going to my sister’s ranch.»

Shannon opened her mouth.

«No,» Whip said, cutting across whatever she had been going to say. «Common sense be damned. You’re going with me this time if I have to tie you to the saddle.»